Thursday, August 05, 2010

Don't Be Duped By Evolutionists, or "The Slippery Slide Into Devolving Theological Liberalism"

For atheists and agnostics, evolution is a no brainer. They don't have the Book - the authoritative self-revelation of the Creator - to guide their thinking. The only viable choice for God-rejectors is to look backward and guess what might have happened in the prehistoric past. Dig up some rocks and try to piece it all together with limited intellect and and a tiny little slice of empirical evidence. Their driving positive presupposition is that they can figure it out, and their driving negative presupposition is that the Biblical account can't possibly be true and isn't even worth considering. They write it off as mere superstition.

It is odd to see Christians follow in lock step with the results of such godless thinking. It's shocking, in fact, to consider how many well-meaning believers are now accepting evolution as an unquestionable fact. We have the official story on cosmic and human origins. We have the Creator's Own Word on the matter. He includes specific details of His own actions in the God-breathed account of Genesis. There is no good reason to doubt His account, from a scientific standpoint or a Biblical one.

The Inerrant Bible: An Alternative to Evolutionary Assumptions

Every day for the past week, I have attended 2-3 hours of scholarly lectures given by Dr. Joel D. Klenk, a scientist from the Paleontological Research Corporation. Klenck, who holds an earned Ph.D from Harvard, teaches extensively on the scientific study of Biblical creation. His material is as deep in the study of Hebrew language and Biblical texts as it is in the study of rock layers, fossils and archeological evidence. He demonstrates how and why the Biblical texts, taken as actual fact, do not conflict with ANY scientific evidence. With insights derived from a career in the field and extensive firsthand study, he exposes multiple and specific instances in which contradictory evidence has been ignored by his evolutionary-minded colleagues. But Klenck is not just another player on the creationist bandwagon. He fearlessly takes fellow creationists to task when any aspect of their approach is either unbiblical or unscientific.

You can learn more about the Paleontological Research Corporation and Dr. Klenck's work by clicking here. (Incidentally, the video introduction/sales pitch was filmed at my church).

If there were actual conflicts between real science and the creation account, I could understand some Christians being tempted to seek an alternative. If evolution made logical and scientific sense, I could understand. But for any believer to deny a creation account that perfectly accords with all of the scientific evidence, and to replace it with something as rickety as evolution theory, is beyond comprehension. Recently, I made the following remark to a Christian evolutionist: even if I were to reject Biblical creation, I could not put evolution in its place because evolution is not scientifically tenable. It's a dead theory, from start to finish. On the other hand, at least theistic evolutionists can claim God made the impossible happen by miraculously intervening - but then why not just say God miraculously created the world in six days as He claims?

Despite the salient problems with their fairy tale, evolutionists throughout the world continue to prop up their theory and present it as factually true. The sheer force of their insistence should cause all thinking people to suspect something is amiss. The pure stubbornness with which they cling to it ought to give us a clue. They leave the impression that only a backwards, intellectually impaired buffoon would ever question their adorable theory. It's all somewhat reminiscent of a cat, which, when cornered, puffs itself up to look big and scary. All that raised fur, the hiss, and those flashing eyes can get you thinking you're in real danger. But in reality you're only facing a terrified little ball of fur. An evolutionist looking at the evidence is rather like a cat stuck up in a tree. He thinks he has the high, safe position, but in reality he was chased up there. Try to get him down, and you'll feel those claws.

Like cornered cats, atheistic evolutionists are scared to death by the obvious drift of the evidence. They're terrified by what the evidence suggests: that we were created by a morally superior God and are accountable to Him in every way. They quell these fears by getting the rest of us to validate and affirm their view (something the evidence can never do). They are more zealous in evangelizing for their secular cause than most Christians are for the cause of the Gospel. In the end, it's all bald conjecture and a denial of the blindingly clear Truth. Christian, don't be fooled!

I didn't realize you had commented on this post until after I removed half of the post and made it into a second article. So, unfortunately, the question you answer here has been relocated to the end of the next post.

Normally, once someone comments on a post, I conscientiously try to avoid making any changes to it.

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About the THEOparadox Team

Derek Ashton,Founder:I know enough about myself to be completely amazed that God loves me. His grace toward me has been abundant and overwhelming. I thank Him that I've been married to my beautiful bride since 1996. I have the privilege of raising two wonderful children who are gifts from God. (Read my testimony here).

Emeritus Team Members:Tony Hayling:Learn more about Tony at his site, Agonizomai.

THEOparadox MISSION Statement:

~To honor God by upholding the authority, inerrancy and sufficiency of His Word, the Bible.~To help students of the Word to interpret Biblical paradoxes in a way that faithfully reflects God's heart.~To ignite a devotional flame that will help believers to warm up their theology and burn up their pride.~To encourage Christian faith by resolving or explaining apparent contradictions in the Scriptures.~To explore the nature and extent of paradoxes in historically orthodox, Reformed, Biblical theology.

~To provide Biblical resources for those who desire to know God and His Word better.

~To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Friend of sinners and the Savior of the lost.

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Feel free to respond to anything written in the posts, or to the comments left by others.

Please be charitable. If you disagree, do so with grace. Keep your words positive, focused, and on-topic. We don't expect everyone to agree, but we do expect everyone to treat everyone else with respect and grace, speaking the truth in love.

Thanks!Mgmt.

Followers

"Heresy is born whenever the Church fails to pray a tension."

"Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism both result from the same problem: A tension-deficient disorder."

"Human beings are incredibly good over-compensators."

What is a PARADOX?

A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion, or seemingly absurd, yet true in fact.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 Edition

"... it is synonymous with apparent contradiction. A 'paradox' thus amounts to a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. Note that according to this definition, paradoxicality does not entail logical inconsistency per se, but merely the appearance of logical inconsistency."

James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology

Wise Words ...

"The juxtaposition of words and ideas that don't usually go together make the real point stand out for us more clearly. And some truths in the Christian life are best expressed as oxymorons - paradoxical language."

~Phil Johnson

Wise Words . . .

"By advocating paradox I don't want to give the impression that I'm giving a carte blanche to not think philosophically, to not think deeply, about these doctrines. Quite the opposite. . . . My position is that with each of these doctrines we reflect on them as hard as we can, we penetrate them as best we can based on the Scriptural data that we do have, but we also recognize that there are going to be limits, and that those limits are actually a positive thing and not a reflection of some inherent problem in the doctrines or in the process of theological reflection. . . . I think we can make progress, we can make

considerable progress, in understanding these doctrines and resolving some of the . . . initial difficulties that we have with them, but at the same time recognizing that we're always only going to get so far and when we bump up against the limits of our capacity to formulate them in certain ways or to resolve certain difficulties in them, we

shouldn't be too concerned about that. We certainly shouldn't say, 'Okay, we need to admit that Christians are ultimately irrationalists.' No. We don't need to say that at all. . . . It's a Biblically constrained rationality. It's a middle way between rationalism, of which I think [Gordon H.] Clark was a representative, and irrationalism, of which, to take an example I think the Neo-Orthodox - Karl Barth - would be an example, where you're saying that there are actual contradictions in there. So I think it's navigating a Biblical middle way between these two extremes: having too high a view of the human intellect, and perhaps too low a view of the intellect, of our ability to know the things

of God."

~Dr. James Anderson

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The Gospel

God lovingly sacrificed His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for a depraved and law-breaking humanity's only way to be saved from His just wrath, and through His death and resurrection graciously sanctified and secured forever all those who believe on Him - for their ultimate good and His eternal glory.

The following quotation was found in a recent post on a popular Arminian blog . It is by James Arminius, the founder of Arminianism, and pur...

Theological Paradoxes

Below I have listed some of the classic theological paradoxes (and a few interesting ironies, too) . . .

~The Trinity- God is One being revealed in three distinct persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)~God is transcendent(separate from His creation) yet immanent(in His creation)~Omnipresence- God is always present everywhere, yet He sometimes speaks of Himself as "present" in a special way~The Incarnation- God became a man~The Virgin Birth - A Jewish virgin gave birth to the Son of God~The Two Natures of Christ - Jesus is fully (100%) God and fully (100%) man

~The Atonement is sufficient to save every person, but efficient only for those who believe~God is completely sovereign (in control of everything, everywhere, all the time) yet He is not the author of sin and he uses human choice to accomplish His purposes~Inspiration of Scripture - The Bible was written by sinful human beings yet it is the inerrant and flawless Word of God~Divine Revelation - Sinful man cannot comprehend God, yet God reveals Himself to sinful man~Sanctification- Christians are sinners by nature, but saints by grace~Suffering- God brings His joy and comfort into our lives through our experiences of pain, disappointment and suffering

There are many others. Paradox is everywhere when we attempt to understand God's ways in a genuinely Biblical way.

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The Apostles' Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,Born of the virgin Mary,Suffered under Pontius Pilate,Was Crucified, dead and buried

He descended into Hades;The third day He rose again from the dead;He ascended into heaven,and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty

From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit,The holy catholic (i.e., universal) Church,The communion of saints;the forgiveness of sins;the resurrection of the body;and the life everlasting. Amen